Retribution, p.26
Retribution, page 26
“Dragons? Marching on Battle’s End?” Ademir growled as he landed beside us, the threat in his words unmistakable. “Now of all times? If he thinks I’ll let this outrage stand—”
“Peace, old friend,” I said, touching my closed eyes and then resting my hand over his heart. “I ask for your vow, Ademir. Do not involve the clan, whatever comes of this incursion. They are not here for the Thyestes.”
“They may come for one, but they’ll find us all, Aldir,” he said firmly, starting to turn away from me. “No member of the Thyestes clan will—”
“Then you must banish me.”
Ademir was so caught off guard by the interruption that it took him several seconds to comprehend my actual words. He scoffed but didn’t move or speak.
“Lord Thyestes, I have given every moment of my very long life—sacrificed everything outside of my duties—to protect my clan and people.” Moving my hand up to the back of his neck, I gently pulled him forward until our foreheads touched. “Now, I am prepared to go willingly into exile to do the same. But you must let me.”
His hand rested on my forearm for a moment, then he pulled away. Craggy lines of pain marred his usually calm features. Several seconds passed, and I sensed him gathering his strength.
“Go then. You…are banished, Aldir, from this place and this clan.”
As he said the words, a scorching fire ripped through the flesh of my neck. The Brand of the Banished. A physical symbol of my lack of a place within Battle’s End or the Cerulean Savanna. The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before, and yet I did not allow myself to express it beyond the gritting of my teeth.
“No pantheon in Epheotus will aid you.” His voice grew rough and emotional as he said the last. “But know that you still may find aid and succor elsewhere, should you need it. Seek respite in the lessers’ world, go to the place known as the Beast Glades on their continent of Dicathen. The ancient dungeons there still contain many secrets, and perhaps even assistance for any wayward sons and daughters of Battle’s End.”
The road of my life had been both long and strenuous, but before, I had always known it finished here, at Battle’s End. Now, that future was gone. Despite having asked for it, it left me feeling momentarily disoriented and adrift, cut off from my own future and fate.
At the very least, it frees me of the burden of ever teaching the World Eater technique to another, I realized as an afterthought.
Then Wren shifted, his clever eyes reading me as plainly as if I were one of the story tapestries in Indrath Castle, and I settled into my new direction. For a being as old as I was, new was a difficult concept to wrap my head around.
But I wasn’t rudderless. I knew where I was going next, even if I didn’t understand what might come of that journey.
And so, with a final bow to Ademir, who could not meet my eye as I was no longer of the Thyestes, I turned on my heel and marched from the square and into the wide, packed-earth streets of Battle’s End. Eyes followed me while pretending not to as I passed the homes, training yards, and merchant stalls, all of which were now shut to me. No one wished me farewell or good luck or bade me good health and strength on my travels, as was tradition.
It hurt more than I had imagined it could. My lack of respect for Kezess and his decisions fomented into hate in that moment. When I used the World Eater technique, I sacrificed my honor and pride. That had been bad enough. But now he had taken my home and heritage as well, and for that, I would never forgive the lord of dragons.
It was with this bitter fury-fueled fire blazing within me that I stepped beyond the boundaries of Battle’s End, but it was the fear that kept me from looking back, fear that the loss would sweep my legs from beneath me if I did.
The savanna grasses grew shoulder high to either side of the well-trodden path, their aquamarines, cyans, turquoises, and teals endlessly whipping back and forth in the Warrior’s Wind. The grasslands no longer felt like a softly rolling ocean, but ten million spears marching at my side toward my oldest and dearest friend among the dragons. It was something, to think that the savanna still stood with me.
It was not long before I found them. I took some small vindictive pleasure from seeing a dozen dragon soldiers stop suddenly, as if their legs would not carry them any closer to me. Windsom, who was leading them, lifted his chin and dragged his most imperious mask across his face, waiting for me to approach.
“Aldir of the Thyestes clan, I have been sent to—”
“Of the Thyestes no longer,” I said formally, cutting across his haughty speech. “I have been banished.”
Windsom’s eyes narrowed. “A convenient shield for your clansmen, but it also simplifies things for Lord Indrath.”
“You are here to arrest me and take me back to receive Kezess’s judgment,” I said, taking a step closer, the magic connecting me to my weapon, Silverlight, tingling across my fingertips.
The soldiers’ hands tightened around their weapons.
Windsom’s expression remained impassive. “Only if you make us. Lord Indrath demands your presence immediately, and we are here to compel your acquiescence.” His brows arched, and he straightened yet further, his mana swelling in a poor imitation of true King’s Force. “With violence if necessary, although Lord Indrath and I both believe you will come peaceably.”
I scanned the faces of the soldiers. I knew them all. Brawny Tassos I had saved from a phoenix flame-rider during the skirmishes after Prince Mordain disappeared. The twins Alkis and Irini had been trained by Kordri since they were just children. I was surprised to see Kastor, who was one of Lady Myre’s private guards. But then, I was quite unsurprised to see the glowering Spiros, who I’d demoted for his callous and bitter attitude toward the other clans, and who had hated me ever since.
It was just the same with all the others. I knew them. I’d trained them, fought with them, commanded them.
That was why he’d chosen these dragons. Not because of their strength—although they were each powerful in their own right—but because they had served and fought alongside me.
And now those years of service counted for naught. Like Windsom, they were entirely loyal to Kezess, and they wore their loyalty like a blindfold, ensuring they saw nothing but what he wished them to see.
Right now, he sowed fear among them, I could see it in their eyes. These dragons were ready to fight me but afraid to do so. As they should be.
The wrath reared up like a hades serpent within me again. I thought I was done with death. After Elenoir, I had neither the heart nor stomach to end more lives, or so I’d told myself. Now, looking at these onetime friends and allies, each of them ready to lay down their lives to protect Kezess’s lies, I made a decision.
If they did not value their lives, then neither would I.
“I won’t return, not by choice, not by force.”
Windsom could not entirely suppress his surprise. His eyes widened and his right foot slid back half a step. The aura emanating from him wavered. “You have changed, old friend. I see nothing of the once great General Aldir left in you.” Turning to Spiros, he nodded. “Alive if possible, but Lord Indrath would rather have his corpse than nothing.”
“But, Lord Windsom, you assured us that—”
Irini’s question was cut short as Spiros thrust his short spear forward and shouted, “Take him down!” Then the soldiers were moving, breaking into formations of four, with Spiros, Tassos, and two others closing first.
Silverlight shimmered into my hand in the shape of a curved kopis, and I stepped into Spiros’s charge. The curved blade caught his spear, which I pulled up to block a downward cut from Tassos’s overlarge two-handed sword. A longspear thrust at my back snagged the fabric of my tunic as I pivoted, and a burning whip cracked before wrapping around my forearm.
Twisting, I hurled Spiros and Tassos backward while ripping the whip-wielding dragon off his feet.
The longspear thrust again, but Silverlight snapped out and caught the haft just below the forged tip, shearing it in two.
Time began to slow.
One of the soldiers teamed with Alkis and Irini was glowing with golden runes that ran along her tan flesh. Another was standing between her and me, two short leaf-shaped blades raised defensively. Alkis and Irini were to either side of the pair, their weapons up, but their focus was on each other as they shared some silent communication.
Opposite them, having circled around me, the last four dragons were transforming. Their physical forms swelled outward, bumping into one another, scales racing over their bodies as the humanoid features melted away to become reptilian and monstrous.
I saw only a splash of colors: white and gold, blue-black, emerald green, and the burning orange of distant fire before turning back to the more immediate threat.
The severed spear tip was still somersaulting through the air. I took hold of it, spun, and let it fly at the rune-covered dragon’s left eye. The defending twin blades came up and knocked the projectile aside, but not before the dragon’s eyes flinched shut.
My mana signature melted away as I channeled Mirage Walk. Before her aevum spell could fully take form, I pushed mana into every cell of my body and stepped out from between my attackers, past the dragon bearing two blades, and just beside the rune-covered soldier. Her eyes opened just as Silverlight pierced her core.
The slowly building weight of the time-stop spell snapped like a frayed rope.
Spinning, I hurled the dying dragon into her protector, sending them both crashing to the ground.
Silverlight jumped out of my hand and slashed through the burning whip, the end of which fell to the dirt and writhed like a dying viper. At the same time, a shadow fell over the battlefield.
The now fully transformed dragons wheeled in the sky above. The largest, her scales glowing white and gold, opened her jaws and breathed out a cone of blue fire tinged purple with aether.
Silverlight shot back to my hand, and I slashed the air while calling upon the force-type mana arts of my kind. The flames were slashed into two separate halves, and the soldiers all around me were forced to dodge as the attack burned away the ground to either side of me. The white-gold dragon twisted rapidly in the air, folding in her wings and diving to avoid my strike.
Pirouetting, I carved a wide arc around me, projecting out a scything force. The savanna rang with a sound like forge hammers falling on hot steel as the force crashed against the soldiers’ aether-infused weapons.
All except for the man with the twin leaf-shaped blades.
Half risen, his furious gaze still on his dying companion, he brought his blades up far too late, and my attack struck him full across the chest, rending his armor and opening his flesh. I sensed his mana flicker and die before his body had even hit the ground. A moment later, the rune-covered woman faded as well.
This. This was yet another cruelty I would lay at Kezess’s feet. These deaths were as much his work as mine.
“General Aldir, please, stop this madness!” Irini shouted from beside the road. She had thrown herself into the savanna grass to avoid the dragon’s fire and was bleeding from cuts all down her arms and legs as the Warrior’s Wind whipped the grass about. “We only meant to—hurk—”
A blade of cyan grass thrust up underneath her chin, piercing her skull. Her misty pink eyes blinked rapidly as she stared at me with dawning terror, then the grass all around her was cutting and slashing, ripping her to pieces.
The savanna was burning, I realized. The dragonfire had set it ablaze. It was under attack, so it was fighting back. Defending itself and the pantheons.
“Irini!” her brother shouted, his voice cracking. He sprinted for her, no threat to me, and I turned my focus away.
Two of the transformed dragons dove from opposite directions, one unleashing a ball of blue fire from its mouth, the other a beam of white lightning. Hidden within the maelstrom of spellwork, I felt Spiros’s shortspear whistling through the air, and from another direction, the whip cracked and cut toward my legs.
With Mirage Walk already active, I was able to instantly step from place to place, easily avoiding the attacks. Or rather, I should have been able to do so, but when I tried, I felt myself slam into some invisible barrier. My shoulder ripped free of its socket from the force of the impact, and I went stumbling back.
The spear hit me just below the breastbone. With a purple shimmer, the aether infused within it punctured my mana. The pain of it traveling through my body and lodging against the ribs near my spine was nothing compared to the brand still burning on my neck.
Dropping to one knee, I took the butt of the spear in one hand while lifting Silverlight over my head with the other.
A transparent sphere of cool light wrapped around me just as the dragon’s breath weapons converged.
Fire and lightning crushed in on the barrier, and Silverlight trembled in my fist as she drank desperately from my mana. Violent ripples ran through the shield.
It shattered.
I burst upward, running along the beam of lightning. With a screech, the blue-black dragon breathing it out snapped closed its jaws and banked sharply away.
An instant later, Silverlight cut the air, projecting a wide arc of cutting force. Blood burst from the dragon’s underbelly, and it listed to the side before careening into the savanna, where the grass came alive, turning the blues and greens to dark crimson.
Curved claws like scimitars closed around me, pinning my arms to my side. The massive bulk of an emerald-green dragon blotted out the sky above me, and both dragon and I began to tremble.
“Go, Kastor!” the white and gold dragon shouted, and I understood.
The trembling became a vibration, and the black scales took on an amethyst sheen.
Kastor was teleporting us back to the base of Mount Geolus.
I released Silverlight and groped for the end of one of the large claws. When I found one, I twisted my wrist, resulting in a splintering sound as the claw shattered in my grip. Kastor flinched, and his remaining claws closed hard around me. Dull pain overrode all sensation in my left arm, and Silverlight slipped from my grasp and fell from between the dragon’s talons.
As the sword tumbled free, she whirled around and flew up just above me, then slashed at Kastor’s emerald-scaled ankle, cutting cleaning through scales, muscle, and bone.
Still partially contained within the severed claw’s grip, I began falling.
Spiros hurtled to meet me. He had partially transformed so that lustrous black scales covered his flesh and wide wings sprouted from his back. His eyes burned scorching violet, and fire was flickering between elongated fangs.
I kicked free of Kastor’s severed claw, rotated, and swam around Spiros’s wild thrust. Silverlight was back in my hand, and she drew a raw, red, gory line from Spiros’s shoulder to hip.
In the same motion, I carried through with a short, sharp cut, the force of which sheared through everything between me and the ground, including the whip-wielding Urien of Clan Somath, who burst apart in a shower of blood.
With a fierce tug, I pulled my arm back into its socket just before striking the ground. I hit hard, using the force to kick up a cloud of dust to obscure me, even for a moment, while I tracked the remaining dragons’ mana signatures.
On the ground, Tassos and the longspear-wielding dragon, Orrin, both of the Indrath clan, stood shoulder to shoulder to my left. To my right, in the distance, Windsom had fallen well back from the combat. Alkis, Irini’s twin, had vanished. Taken by the savanna, I was sure.
In the sky, I could hear Kastor cursing his pain while the other two transformed dragons continued to circle the battleground.
“Let this end,” I boomed, not speaking to any of the dragons in particular. “There is no need for the rest of you to die as well.”
“Traitor!” Tassos shouted, the word rolling like thunder across the savanna.
Through the cold fury of my rage, I felt my heart thump painfully. This, coming from a warrior whose life I had once saved, who had sworn to return the favor someday as he grinned through the pain of his flesh regrowing over burned limbs…
Could none of them see what I could see?
But no, of course they couldn’t. Even I hadn’t seen it, not until Kezess had forced me to use the World Eater technique. Until then, Kezess’s control over my worldview had been absolute, a veil so subtle and ethereal that it could not be seen or touched.
It would have been better if I could show them. Perhaps another could break Kezess’s spell someday. But because I could not, it would be too late for these dragons.
Sensing around me, I felt the walls this time before I utilized Mirage Walk. Distortions in space itself, invisible to every sense except my thoroughly honed pantheon’s instinct. One of the dragons was utilizing aether to block the near-instant bursts of speed allowed by Mirage Walk, the Thyestes clan’s secret technique.
But of course, when all clans answered to Kezess, there were no secrets from the dragons.
Silverlight shifted forms, becoming an ornate silver longspear, and I thrust at the invisible barrier. Though the dragons’ ability to influence aether had made them the strongest of all the races, they did not control it. Creating something solid, such as an invisible barrier, was a subtle use of their influence that even the strongest of aether wielders would struggle to maintain against the application of pure force.
The barrier shattered. High above, the white-gold dragon howled in surprise and pain.
Tassos was already moving, his two-hander radiating a black-purple glow that seemed to draw the light from the very air. To my right, Kastor turned into a dive, shooting toward us like a dark star.
Tassos was strong, one of the most physically powerful dragons I had ever commanded. His ability to encourage aether into his weapon made him a truly deadly combatant. But I had trained and fought beside him, and I knew his abilities better perhaps than he himself.
All of his strength was behind the swing, aimed directly at my neck with force enough to shatter any defense. I delayed my forward lunge, channeled Mirage Walk, and took a single step.
